When You're Seventeen
by AlreadyPainfullyGone
Summary: High school AU. Dean breaks Castiel's heart in high school. Fifteen years later he's trying to make it right. Some Cas/Balthazar, relationship non-explicit. Dean/other mentioned. Fluffy/Angsty/Romantic
1. Chapter 1

'Hey beautiful, haven't seen you around.' Dean winks at the man in the tuxedo.

'This isn't funny Dean.' Castiel reties his tie for the fiftieth time. 'Is it straight?'

'Yes Cas, it's still perfectly vertical – can we go? Prom waits for no man.'

'and neither does Anna, I know.' Castiel tugs at his hair, ridiculously bed headed even with about an hour of preening. His blue eyes almost cross trying to see the fluffed up peaks that shadow his forehead.

'oh for the love of...you're gorgeous Cassie, let's GO!'

Prom is going to be good. Dean has a hip flask and a passing grade in every subject that say so. Anna's as beautiful as always, waiting for him to pick her up in the car, of course Cas is coming too, dateless or not. Best friends do not abandon each other on the biggest night of the school year.

Dean leads Anna to the passenger seat like some kind of suburban princess, Castiel waiting in the back seat. At the high school a valet takes over the impala, leaving Dean with the feeling that he's just trusted his right arm to a possible cannibal. He's distracted by the gym, hung with crepe and lights to match the balloons and table cloths. Garden themed as voted by Anna's prom committee.

Castiel smiles, ducking off into the crowd to fade against the wall like he does at all the formals. Dean lets him go, leading Anna to be photographed against an unrealistic grassy knoll.

They dance, they drink punch which has been spiked three separate times with vodka, whiskey and gin and so tastes foul but lights everyone up like nothing else. Michael and Lucy win Prom King and Queen respectively. Anna complains that her new shoes are blistering her feet and takes to a table to gossip with Ruby and Lisa.

Dean listens to the opening bars of 'Ever fallen in love (with someone you shouldn't've)' knocks back another glass of paint stripper/punch and looks up at the strings of lights, tonight is going to be good.

_Fifteen Years Later_

_Tonight is going to be awful. _

_Dean walks into the gallery, surrounded on all sides by pristine white walls and carefully hung blocks of colour. There are people milling around, dressed in the ubiquitous black of artists and their hangers on. He helps himself to a flute of Champagne. _

_What the hell is he even doing here?_

Prom Night 

'Hey, Cas? You coming back to mine?' Dean spots his friend at the end of the hallway, talking to Chuck and holding a mostly full glass of punch. 'The post-prom remember?'

Castiel hovers in indecision, he hates wild parties, never feels at home and never gets drunk, which doesn't make him easy to mix with.

'Please?' Dean bits his lip, eyebrows crooked in expectation.

'Ok, yes.' Castiel smiles slightly. 'but please don't try to get me hammered like last time.'

'Gabriel, not me.' Dean raises his hands 'and it's your fault for thinking it was actual jello' Castiel looks green at the memory.

Prom peters out after the king and queen announcements, so Dean and Anna find Castiel and drive over to Dean's deserted house. No parents and no Sam for once. The rest of their class (class of '95 Woooo! Dean adds mentally) arrive by the car load, Dean hands off drinks and dodges through crowds making nice. He isn't popular, but he's a friendly sonofabitch with a lot of charm when he cares to use it, even if he says so himself. Everyone seems to be having a good time, he's buzzed and Anna's already dragged him outside for a make out session.

Life is Good.

7 minutes in heaven...is very bad.

They start playing at the suggestion of Meg, who thinks it's a cute teenager activity they should enjoy before they get too old. Whatever, most of them are too drunk to argue. The guests slowly get divvied up with the aid of a bowl of names on bits of paper.

Chuck and Becky (Lots of whistling and blushing)

Lisa and Crowley (Lots of warning looks from her friends)

Jo and Ash (Jo complains loudly and Ash spits out his beer)

Anna and Ruby (Dean just about holds it together but the visual his brain provides is awesome)

Dean and Castiel

He shrugs, drags his friend into the coat closet and lets the door bang shut, outside he hears muffled whispers and catcalls and shouts to 'get on with it'. Three inches from his chest Castiel is breathing shakily, or maybe he just thinks it's loud because of the tiny space.

"Some night huh?" Dean hisses. He feels warm, gloriously buzzed and about five seconds from shouting 'Good will to all men!'

"Yeah" Castiel's eyes are sleepy, drunk on punch and the heavily spiked drinks Gabriel's been foisting on him by way of getting Bella to bring them over. Castiel is four seconds from kissing him, he's had a crush on Dean for over three years and he's finally drunk enough to do something about it. To do anything that'll get Dean to look at him, just once, as more than his clueless friend.

He's mid lunge when Dean pushes him back against the wall.

"The hell dude?"

"I don't know" Castiel's whisper is thick and strained. "I don't...Dean" he closes his eyes. "I've wanted to do this for a while."

"You're drunk Cas" Dean says both truthfully and charitably in his opinion.

"I'm not that drunk" Castiel's hand touches his face and Dean doesn't brush it away. He lets Castiel inch him forwards, till he can feel his breath on his face. "I know. Exactly. What. I'm..."

Dean's mouth hits his, cutting off the words as their lips meet. He presses Castiel into the wall and feels his body, warm and strong beneath his suit, pressed against his own. His knee falls between Castiel's legs, earning a small sound of approval and the start of a fierce grinding session that leaves them both panting against the wall.

Dean looks down at his friend's wide eyes and feels excited, terrified and freakily turned on. He has no idea what to do with this.

He kisses Castiel again.

_Fifteen Years Later_

_The gallery fills up with people and chatter. Dean's a little self conscious about his suit (rented) and his size (broad to the point of terrifying) but no one's even looking at him. He helps himself to some of the fancy sushi at the bar._

_The crowds buzz of chatter intensifies as the artist arrives. _

_Balthazar Reynolds, blond, slim and purring thanks with his smooth British accent. _

_Dean feels like more of an ass now that he's actually seen the guy. Celebrated artist and all around awesome guy, with a penthouse in every major capital across Europe, more money than God and a brilliant career. The only thing missing is the perfect guy on his..._

"_Dean?" _

_The voice comes from behind him at the bar, deeper than he remembers, sharp with surprise that isn't entirely pleasant. _

_He turns around_

"_Hey Cas."_

Prom Night

"Cas?" Dean manages to gasp, which isn't easy with someone's hand down his pants, stroking him with maddening ease even while he's close to being totally drunk. Dean's own hands are buried in Castiel's hair and boxers respectively. They're rubbing each other in a tangled frenzy of arms and fingers, mouths meeting in open mouthed desperate kisses. "Cas...I..."

"What?" he's panting too, breath trembling through his lungs as he arches away from the closet wall.

"I love you man" It's a fierce, drunken declaration, and he's a knifes breadth from coming. But he means it, he loves Castiel right now, more than he loved him as a friend.

Their allotted time has already passed, not that either of them is thinking about that. Everyone outside the closet has been distracted by the revelation that Jo slept with Crowley the previous summer, so they've forgotten the game.

Or at least they had.

If Dean and Castiel had been less intoxicated they might have remembered that the closet wasn't locked.

Lisa remembers the duo and tugs the door open.

Jo gets let of the hook as quickly as she was placed on it.

The two guys still have their hands on each other, dishevelled, red faced and damp with sweat. Dean leaps away from Castiel as if scalded.

The onlookers have gone silent.

"Dean...what the hell?" Anna's voice is quiet but deafening in the tomb like stillness of the room.

"I'm..." Dean looks at the crowd, friends, strangers, classmates...then back at Castiel who looks just as shell shocked but also waiting, waiting to see what he'll say.

Dean runs, shoving through the crowd, out of the room, out of the house. Never mind that it's his home, that he has nowhere else to go. He runs for it.

Leaving Castiel to face the music.

_Fifteen Years Later_

_Castiel has changed in the intervening time. Obviously, it's been fifteen years and the last time Dean saw him he'd still been a teenager. He's gained height since then, and filled out enough to lose the deer like fragility he used to have. His hair is cut better, still completely black, but now an artistic bedhead tangle. His eyes are still as blue as they used to be, his face having gained a few lines and stubble. He's wearing a suit, black and expensive, with a white shirt left open at the collar. _

_He looks amazing and Dean can't stop staring. _

"_What...why are you here?" he asks uncertainly."God it's been..."_

"_A long time." Dean feels his smile come in to play, then waver with nerves. "How've you been?"_

"_Good...this is unbelievable." Castiel still looks more stunned than happy. "You're the last person I expected to see, here, of all places."_

_Dean looks sheepish._

"_This isn't an accidental meeting, is it?" Castiel's voice goes toneless as he takes in Dean's expression. _

"_No I...I saw your picture in the paper."_

"_And you decided to come here...why?" He's guarded, eyes hardened and distant. Dean realises how badly he's handling this. _

"_I wanted to see you." He sighs. "Cas..."_

"_Please don't call me that." Castiel says quietly. "I haven't been 'Cas' in years." He's avoiding Dean's eyes._

"_Castiel" Dean's voice is quiet, earnest. "I wanted to see you, to tell you..."_

"_Sweetheart" Balthazar wraps an arm around Castiel's waist and presses a sweet kiss to his cheek. "You made it." Dean has to admit they look good side by side, healthy and well dressed. Balthazar tanned and blond, Castiel pale and dark. Night and day. Exuberance and introverted grace. Dean wants to walk away but he can't. _

"_Of course I did." Castiel replies neutrally. _

"_And you brought..."_

"_This is Dean. We knew each other in high school." _

"_Oh? I thought I knew all your friends from St. James's?" Polite curiosity, the guy didn't have a suspicion in his head, and why should he? It's not like Dean could pose a threat. _

"_My first high school. In Lawrence."_

"_Oh then I'll leave you to it" Balthazar presses a glass of champagne into Castiel's hand and kisses him properly on the mouth. Castiel's eyes flutter closed and he accepts the kiss. "I'll see you later Baby." Balthazar strides back into the crowd. _

"_Castiel..."_

"_I think you should go, Dean." Castiel looks down at his glass. "I have nothing to say to you."_

_Dean's left watching Castiel's slim, dark suited back retreat through the crowd, towards the glass doors that lead to the balcony. _

Prom Night

"Fuck!" Dean punches the tree again. "Oh my...Fuck!" His knuckles are bloody and his face is burning with exertion. He's just thrown Castiel to the wolves, lost his girlfriend, his reputation, his life...

He's left Castiel behind.

The first guy he's touched, has been touched by. Someone he just might love, as far as you can love at his age.

His friend for years. He's left him behind.

Castiel leaves the party as soon as he can. Anna's shouting, Lisa's trying to ask him if he's ok, Crowley's making innuendos, Gabriel's trying to get an arm around him and lead him away, everyone else is chattering, clamouring.

It's too much.

Gabriel gets him to the door, but he shakes him off, tells him he wants to be left alone. He walks in the direction home in a daze of horror.

He's lost everything. His few friends, his life, Dean. He will never, never live this down.

"It's over" he says aloud. Then, "It's, fucking, over." His eyes burn and he curses himself for being such an idiot. The unfamiliar swear words grate at his chest and he wants to shout them, anything to get the lead weight out of his stomach and the pressure from his heart.

That's when he turns a corner on the dark street and see's Dean.

He's sitting at the base of a tree, hands over his face, legs sprawled on the damp grass. Castiel freezes, but he hasn't been walking that quietly and Dean looks up, face pale and twisted with misery. His hands are bloody. Castiel forces himself to move towards the crouching figure of his friend. Dean just watches him numbly.

"Dean...I'm sorry." He says, when he's only a few feet away. It's quite cold and he can feel the tenseness of his repressed shivers warring with the tightness in his chest. "I didn't think...I just..."

"Cas can you...can you leave me alone?"

"Dean...?"

"Just...stay away from me." He glares across the small space between them, eyes begging and warning. "I mean it, Cas."

"I'm sorry Dean" he says again, turning away.

He doesn't reply.

The next day Castiel begs his parents for a transfer. He moves to St. James's high school for his final year, avoiding the scandal at his own school. He cuts all ties with his former friends and attempts to make new ones. It isn't easy, even changing schools hasn't let him off the hook, gossip carries and at a catholic school, no one wants to associate with a boy who's rumoured to fool around with other boys.

He tries to forget Dean, which is made easier when the other boy doesn't call, or email or try to see him.

He breaks once, his first Christmas back in Lawrence, gets to the end of Dean's street before he realises that he's making a mistake. He spends the next holidays at his home, not going out in case he sees one of the old crowd.

Dean endures his final year of high school, abandoned by everyone for either groping Castiel or running out on him. Crowley and Alistair torment him, emptying his locker and trashing the contents, leaving porn there instead, blocking him from the shower after gym. The girls whisper about him, people call him a fag, or an asshole. Gabriel ignores him because he hurt Cas, made him leave town. Anna gathers her hurt around her and refuses to speak to him, Lisa too out of deference to her friend. He takes the silence, the stares, the abuse and the occasional beating behind the gym, because he feels guilty and this helps a little, being punished.

It still gets to him though, the constant mockery and sideways looks grinding him down. He stays in his room at home, not wanting to go out, to do anything. Sometimes he wishes it could just be over, that he didn't have to live with it anymore.

Sam is his only friend for a good long time, even once he finally gets out of Laurence and gets into The University of Kansas. He does his mechanics degree with a series of one night stands on the side, all women. Now that he's out of high school he feels better, gains some perspective. What happened with Castiel was over a year ago, both of them have left school, both of them have moved on.

It was a teenage friendship that ended badly – not something to ruin his life over.

Although relationships are beyond him, and it's not because of the fact he kissed Castiel, one drunken fumble in a closet isn't going to turn him gay or scar him for life, he's adamant. It's because he doesn't want to share his space, his life, with some one, not now and probably not ever. Because he lost Castiel as a friend the night he gained (and lost) him as something else.

He can't do that again, let someone in and get to know them, only to lose them.

He leaves the university with a second rate degree and no plans. Ends up in California working for a moderately sized garage and earning decent pay. He dates semi-seriously, usually ending things when it looks like he's going to have to make a commitment. He has his apartment, his weekends off and his car. He loves watching football at the college or playing pool with his work buddies. His life is just full enough to be entertaining, just empty enough to be casual.

At one point he gets engaged to a girl named Cassie. She's nice and fun and they get along, but in the end he cuts her loose two months before the wedding. It's an ugly encounter that leaves him wary of offering too much, in case he fails to deliver again. He tries to ignore the fact that the years are trundling by, that more often than not he spends the holidays and his birthday either trying to get laid or alone in his apartment.

He's forgotten about Castiel for the most part, he remembers him as an event, a stage in his high school experience. He feels guilty about never making it right with him, but only in the way you'd feel guilty about not seeing a relative who then died unexpectedly. Pointless, useless to regret something that can't be changed.

He wishes he had the kind of friends he forgot how to make a long time ago. The kind of friends you do more than drink and josh around with. Friends who're like your second family.

Castiel leaves St. James High and goes to college in New York. He majors in Literature with a minor in Fine Art and that's where he meets Balthazar. Clever, articulate and charming Balthazar is the first person to show any interest in him at all. Castiel flourishes in it.

He graduates with honours and a steady relationship. He takes a job at a publishing house whilst Balthazar works on his paintings and they get along just fine. He never suggests that they live together, despite the expense of keeping two apartments, and Balthazar doesn't push it, he knows Castiel likes his space.

So he goes to all the important art events. They go on private dates and do things at the holidays. They know all the things about each other that they're supposed to know – favourite foods, phobias, and embarrassing memories, preferences in music, books, clothing and sex.

Castiel never mentions Dean. He can't bring himself to open that particular wound. On the surface the incident was nothing, but underneath, underneath what actually happened is the knowledge that he lost his first love, his best friend, and his whole high school existence in one night. That he was sent away from the one boy he'd ever expressed interest in.

He has no idea how to explain that.

Their relationship is casual, they socialise and date and sleep together. He's with Balthazar for ten years, then more. They aren't really committed, but they have fun, they're sweet to each other and Castiel can't think what more he wants.

He rarely thinks about Dean, seeing him more as a crush that he's never spoken of and now can't see the point in revealing. Balthazar wouldn't be interested except in a polite, sharing past experiences way. And Dean is more than a past experience. He's a lost opportunity, a missed chance.

Dean sees the news paper article a week before the exhibition.

It shows a picture of Balthazar standing next to Castiel, who Dean recognises but still checks the legend underneath, just to be sure.

Balthazar Reynolds and his partner Castiel Novak.

Uncharacteristically, Dean's been thinking about Castiel a lot, he avoided it once he was free of the incident itself, but Castiel has snuck back into his mind. It started with a nightmare about being back in high school, and it left him thinking about that last year, how different it might have been if he'd stood up for himself that night, taken Castiel to one side and told him...

Told him what?

That they were friends. That in that one moment he realised Castiel was going to kiss him he saw that change. Saw what they could have and wanted it. Allowed it to happen because he wanted to see them on the other side, together in a way that wasn't friendship, but more intimate, something exclusive and private.

That he wanted the chance to fall in love with him, because it would be so easy, so pleasant to do.

So why the hell hadn't he?

The years behind him. Fifteen years of women, some who stayed around a while, some he skipped out on before the sun came up. Fifteen years of living alone and working, aging without a plan, without a warm thought to tether him to the future.

He'd lost his best friend. And ok, they were strangers now, but he was still living like an outcast, like a refugee from a scandal over ten years old.

And he owed Castiel an apology.

_Fifteen Years Later_

_Dean let himself out through the glass doors._

_The balcony was deserted, save for the figure of Castiel, leaning on the railing at the far corner. The balcony spanned the entire side of the gallery, leaving Dean with a long walk towards the back of a man he hadn't seen in so long, and didn't really know anymore._

"_Castiel?" _

_He doesn't even look up. There's a crystal tumbler of scotch on the railing beside him and he's staring out at the city, lit up beneath them._

"_Please leave me alone Dean." His voice is calm and tight. _

"_I flew down here from California." Dean says, gently, standing at the railing a few feet from the other man. "I came to apologise."_

"_I'm sorry you've wasted your time." Castiel takes a sip from his glass. "I've long since stopped caring about it."_

_About YOU is what Dean hears._

"_I haven't" He says defiantly._

"_Well there isn't much I can do about that." Castiel's voice is still blank, like they're talking at some banal event. _

"_No, but I can still apologise. I've spent all this time regretting what I did, even when I was trying to forget everything I left in Lawrence...I still regret leaving you."_

_Castiel's shoulders are tight, his profile stiff and dark. _

"_I don't know what would have happened." Dean continues, trying to find something, anything to explain how he feels. Because it was fifteen years ago and he feels ludicrous, but it means something. It's not like it changed his life, but it could have done. "I might have had you for a few more years, Cas...I missed out on that, on you. That night was...it was new, but we were friends for a long time and it was a fucking lousy thing to do."_

"_So why'd you do it?" Castiel's voice is sharp, cool shell breaking open even though his back is still turned. _

"_I freaked out." Is Dean's simple answer. "Everyone was there, I was drunk and scared..."_

"_And I wasn't scared?" Castiel turns around and looks at him, eyes narrowed in disbelief. "Dean, I was terrified. I'd just made a move on my best friend. My MALE friend, and most of our classmates saw me do it...and you left, me."_

_Dean can't look him in the eye._

"_You left me there with Crowley and Ruby, Alistair." The names of their cruellest peers. "Anna was there, remember?"_

"_I know, and I'm sorry." He can't just take this. "but I was there for the next year, when you left."_

"_You expected me to stay, after that?" His voice is painfully low. "Catholic school was not the soft option, it was the only school that would take me at short notice. Like I could stay in Lawrence with them, once they all knew?"_

"_I did"_

"_Congratulations. Clearly you're made of stronger stuff." His voice crackles with anger. "Now that we understand that, perhaps you'd like to leave." _

"_I stayed for you." Dean manages, calmly. Castiel just looks at him. "I wanted...I thought, when school started we'd have had a chance to talk...that I could make it right." He winces. "You were gone Cas, I didn't find out until weeks after the party...and I figured you had to come home sometime...maybe Christmas or Easter...but you didn't." Dean's never said this aloud before. "and I kept thinking, maybe next time he'll come back, but you never did. I could have called or I don't know, written to you...but I thought you'd just ignore it unless...I was right in front of you."_

_Castiel just looks at him._

_Dean can feel it coming back, those last few years of his teenage life, so long ago. Alternately waiting for Castiel and trying to forget him, waiting to make things right before he finally accepted that he'd never get the chance. That Castiel would never want to see him. _

"_You know...I came to see you."Castiel says, finally. "First Christmas home and I got to the end of your street before I lost my nerve." He looks younger than he should, seventeen again instead of over thirty. "I thought you didn't want me."_

"_I was seventeen Cas" Dean sighs "I didn't know what I wanted, I didn't have the time to decide, it all happened...it was one night! I needed more time."_

"_Well you've been lucky. Fifteen years? That is a long time, by anyone's standards." Castiel's brow is furrowed again. "And now you decide you want to apologise?"_

"_I know, and you're with...Balthazar and this is unfair, and stupid and...and I don't know why I came here." Dean shifts awkwardly. "But...I was with Anna, and we were stupid and neither of us, knew what we were doing...so I thought I'd chance it...seeing you again...just to say sorry." _

_Castiel looks at him, looks into him. The breeze circling them and the sounds of the party sounding fragile and brittle through the glass doors._

"_Would it make you feel better?"_

"_That's not the point." Dean shakes his head. What he realises, and what Castiel must notice in his eyes and face is that he means, yes, it would._

"_Apology accepted." Castiel doesn't move or even flicker. Then he sighs. "Fifteen years is a long time...and I regret not seeing you." He adds quietly "You were my best friend...I'm sorry, for ruining that." Dean moves closer, along the railing, till they're standing side by side .Hesitantly he raises his hand to Castiel's shoulder. He turns to look at him and Dean remembers how it felt to have Castiel look at him like that, like a friend, like he was worth something. _

"_I've missed you" he says, quietly, as if surprised by the strength of such an unexpected feeling. Dean feels a smile, a genuine smile, tease the edges of his mouth._

"_I missed you too Cas."_

"_No one's called me Cas in...God, years. Not since you." Castiel frowns. "Feels like a long time ago."_

"_Yeah" Dean swallows, trying not to feel what he's feeling, finding it impossible. _

"_It's been a long time Dean." Castiel repeats, their faces millimetres from touching. Castiel's hand traces from the railing to Dean's face, cool and soft. _

_The kiss is a barely there brush of Castiel's lips against his own, but Dean feels it everywhere, an awareness of its importance, of how much he's wanted this. Castiel pulls away almost immediately. Finger's still on Dean's cheek. There's a pause in which neither of them breathe, and then Dean kisses him back. Castiel's hand moves to the back of his head, twining in his short hair as best it can, Dean presses him into the railing and feels the dry passes of their lips become wet and warm, then hot and slow. Castiel makes a small sound in his throat, hands dropping to Dean's shoulders and then lower, drifting down his back to his waist, tugging him closer. _

_A couple of minutes of messy, deep kisses are interrupted by a cheer from inside as Balthazar's latest painting is unveiled. That's all it takes to remind them that they aren't seventeen, and they aren't young infatuated kids anymore. They're adults, with a history that's been blank since high school, and one of them has a partner, a real relationship._

"_I shouldn't be doing this." Castel murmurs, hand mapping the contours of Dean's throat and chest as he regains his breath._

"_This isn't why I came here...I don't want you to think..."_

"_I know" Castiel stiffens "I shouldn't have, I'm sorry." He goes to pull away but Dean holds him back. _

"_I meant that I wasn't expecting anything" he explains. "Didn't say I wanted to stop." _

"_What are we doing?" Castiel looks up at him, body tight with confusion. _

"_I don't know" is Dean's automatic response. "I want..." there are so many ways to end that sentence. "I want this to be ok."_

"_And it's not, is it?" Castiel sighs. "Balthazar...Dean, you're not..." he looks at him in sudden horror. "You're not married are you?"_

"_You think I'd do this if I was?" He's a little offended. "No Cas, not married, not anything to anyone."_

"_But I am." Castiel looks back at the doors that separate them from the gilded party. "I've been with Balthazar for a long time Dean...I can't believe I'm doing this." He looks stricken, and Dean has to admit it's taken him by surprise, one minute he barely knows Castiel, he's just trying to say sorry, the next they're all over each other. _

"_Cas, calm down. We're..." he takes a deep breath. "We're just old friends who lost contact, bringing up all that stuff...feelings running a little high. It's not a problem." _

_Castiel cups his jaw and kisses him, deeply, thoroughly, pulling back with swollen lips tinged red with the blood rushing to the surface._

"_That's a problem." He says numbly. _

"_Cas..." Castiel kisses him again, dragging him down with a hungry sound scratching at his throat. Mouth moving raw and desperate. "Cas, you don't want to do this..."_

"_I know, exactly, what I want." He stresses, kissing him again, bodies pressed firmly together, his long fingers wrapped in Dean's collar. "I'm thirty-two Dean... and I want you." His fingers slide down his chest and under Dean's shirt, then just under the waistband of his slacks, tracing the inch of skin beneath it. "I want you." His voice is rougher, he presses his mouth along Dean's jaw and Dean feels the practiced lover in him, lending its polish to the sentiments he's been carrying since he was a teenager. Castiel is beyond tempting, he feels amazing, and he's looking at him through half lidded eyes, worry and indecision warring with arousal and love frozen in adolescent obsession. _

_Dean can feel the same things burning in his gut. _

_He drags Castiel into an embrace, arms wrapping around him, face pressed into his neck. It's awkward but Castiel returns it, gripping him back with bruising force. Dean pulls away for long enough to kiss him, then steps backwards and stuffs his hands into his pockets. _

"_We should...this is too much to deal with, not here." Dean rubs a hand against his forehead. "Can I...Can I give you my number, Castiel?" he says formally. _

"_I'd like that." The other man hands him his cell phone, silver and modern. Dean punches in his number and returns it. _

"_So...call me. Any time." He says, gruffly. _

"_I will." Castiel sounds like he means it, and Dean believes him totally. "I don't want to lose you again, Dean."_

"_Ok...then I guess I'll see you around." Dean smiles to himself. "And...I should probably leave you to it...this kind of thing...not really where I belong."_

"_I'm glad you came." Castiel's eyes don't leave his. _

"_Me to."_

_Dean smiles again before walking slowly back to the doors, through the gallery and out onto the darkened street. He heads back to his motel with a tightness in his chest that has nothing to do with regret, and everything to do with anticipation. _


	2. Chapter 2

Castiel lets himself back into his apartment. The lights send a warm glow over the pleasant interior, soft brown leather couches and antique area rugs flaring to life in a pattern of russet and cream. He likes this place, given the amount of time he spends at work, or with Balthazar at his modern apartment and in galleries...it's nice to come home to somewhere still and familiar.

He shrugs off his trench coat at the door, crosses the floor to locate a decanter and a fresh tumbler next to the book case. He pours himself a generous measure, slips out of his suit jacket and sprawls on the couch, head resting on a tapestry cushion. The scotch is good stuff, something he likes to spend his salary on, besides antique books and furniture. He lets the warmth of it, the flavour spread through his mouth and down through his body. He rubs one socked foot against his calf idly.

It's been one hell of a night.

Dean Winchester, after fifteen years. The man had no right to appear, full of apologies and good grace. There is no way in hell Castiel ought to forgive him. No justice that the pretty seventeen year old boy he'd wanted with such desperation all those years ago should have grown into a gorgeous, well matured man.

And yet he has, and Castiel has done what he thought he'd never get the chance to do.

He's forgiven Dean Winchester.

He's _kissed _Dean Winchester.

His eyes drift closed against the soft glow of the recessed lights. The room is warm and quiet, the traffic noise outside drowned out by the hiss of rain against the widows.

He lets his empty glass fall to the carpet. Scotch and champagne mix and course through his blood.

Dean Winchester's mouth on his.

His hands on his skin.

His body pressing up against him.

Dean.

A long breath hisses from his lips. He lets his body relax into the couch, one hand tugging his shirt free of his suit pants. Fifteen years and nothing's really changed. He still wants him so god damn much.

Balthazar. Think about Balthazar. His mind tells him. All the mornings waking up next to the slim blond man, listening to him talk about art, passion and accent wrapping the words up and making them so seductive. The places they've been together, galleries all over Europe, churches, monasteries and landmarks. The things they've done in hotel rooms along the way, caressing and touching each other, finding their own ways to mark and pleasure each other.

Dean. Dean. Dean. Dean. Beats out a tattoo over the light memories of streaming sun in Rome and heated sex in London hotels.

Dean in fifth period math, running a hand over Castiel's shoulder and complaining that he still doesn't understand simultaneous equations, breath smelling of illicit cigarettes and gum.

Dean throwing him down on the couch, pinning him and forcing him to submit to watching Die Hard for the fifth time, rather than whatever indie movie he'd picked that week.

Dean laughing. Dean singing out of tune as he fixed sandwiches for study sessions. Dean lying on Castiel's single bed, back at his parents' house. Castiel, younger and infatuated snagging cigarettes from Dean's lips because he's never been good with boundaries.

Balthazar carefully sticking nicotine patches onto him at age 20, when he finally decided to quit smoking.

Dean sleeping next to him when they crashed out after ten hours of bad movies and worse popcorn. ACDC still playing on Dean's tape deck, the sheets around him warn K-mart cotton and smelling of Dean himself, the warm body separated from his by pyjama pants and three inches of space.

Balthazar slipping between layers of Egyptian cotton, baring a mug of coffee and a sweet, open mouthed kiss.

Dean running up the stairs to his bedroom, thudding against the door and diving for Castiel's bed. 'Hey Cas! You coming out with me and Sam today?'

'Cas! Feel like playing hooky?"

"C'mon, you gonna lie there all day? What about baseball?" and if he stayed on the bed, book in hand and radio playing, Dean would nudge him over and lie next to him, complaining with a smile that Castiel wasted too much of summer on reading.

Balthazar taking him to the library of congress, putting aside his own coolness towards literature to treat Castiel to what was essentially the best day of his academic career.

Dean pressed against him in a closet, slurring 'I love you' into his first kiss. Their first kiss.

Castiel gathers his memories of Dean, faded and worn at the edges from so much handling. He lets Balthazar fade into the background, rubbing himself lazily through his slacks. It's been a long time since he allowed himself to think of Dean this way, allowed himself to think of Dean at all. There had been times though, once the initial sting of his betrayal had subsided, when he had let himself imagine Dean. Recreate the feel of so many lazy afternoons out on the grass, lying in the sun, overlaid with what he had experienced of Dean's kisses, of his body.

Balthazar, no matter how real, how perfect and loving and present he might be, had been usurped as Castiel's lover years before they'd even met. Unfair as it was, Castiel had loved Dean, wanted him, lost him and missed him. There wasn't enough of him left to give to someone else.

He lets his hand slide inside his slacks, his underwear. Sighing as he begins to work himself, lazily, through his collection of memories, the many Dean's – seventeen, sixteen, fifteen and further back.

For a while he can pretend he's a teenager again, lusting after his best friend and half hoping that he feels the same.

Then there's the new Dean, the only real one. Fifteen years on, broader, coarsened and softened through age into an adult. Dean has grown into his build, shoulders widening, frame gaining solidity until he nearly dwarfed Castiel's slender build.

Castiel's hand works urgently, his eyes closed as he remembers Dean from that evening.

Rented suit not hiding the bulk of a body that spent most of its time working. Small wrinkles forming creases by his eyes and mouth, tanned skin. The same green eyes he remembers, and the soft, almost feminine mouth that has somehow managed not to sour with age.

His hips twitch upwards and a whimper escapes him, despite his rigid control.

The way he looked, desperate for connection, for absolution. The way he felt underneath Castiel's hands, solid and warm. The way Castiel felt his heart thud the first time Dean called him 'Cas' again, the first time he saw Dean again, changed but not lessened in all that time.

Somehow all that bravado still thrumming away under the surface, enough shit eating cock sure attitude to walk into a roomful of strangers and find him there.

Still too fucking pretty for his own good, too god damn perfect to not touch, to not want to feel what he never got to feel as a teenager, Dean Winchester's naked back under his hands, bucking in...

He comes, stuttering his hips into his hand as he jerks his head up and his eyes fly open.

Letting his head fall back to the couch cushion with a frustrated sigh, Castiel acknowledges the fact that he has a problem, before he falls asleep. Alcohol and orgasm lulling him into dreamless slumber. Which is only fair, he dreams enough when he's awake, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

"Castiel? Baby..."

Castiel's eyes open and he finds himself looking up at Balthazar, perched on the couch and rubbing a thumb lazily across his temple. The lights are still on, their golden glow making his clouded vision blurry and haloed in light. Balthazar smiles at him softly, hand cupping Castiel's face.

"You're tired?" he nods sleepily, brow creasing, trying to remember...

Oh. Right, why he's asleep on the couch and not in bed where he should be, because he's just finished trying to work out fifteen plus years of frustration on a stomach full of alcohol and a mind full of cold memories. He feels pathetic, low and drunk and sick with himself.

"Come on then...let's get you to bed." Balthazar is in a good mood, though he's rarely not good natured, he eases Castiel to his feet, taking him into his bedroom. There he turns down the quilt, flicks on the bedside lamp and goes to turn out the lights in the living room. Castiel takes the opportunity to remove his shirt, his slacks and underwear, uncomfortable now that he's spent inside of them. The worst type of teenager – the one who never grew up.

He gets into bed feeling cold and shaky, like he's ill instead of drunk and tired.

Balthazar returns with a glass of water. He sits on the bed, running a hand loosely over Castiel's mussed hair, fondly threading his fingers into it.

"Can I stay?" he asks, eyes wide and open, hopeful. Castiel is precious about this space, likes having his own bed to retire to at the end of the night, to be alone with his thoughts and to wake up with no one to act for. He never feels completely comfortable around people, not even with Balthazar, after all this time.

He shakes his head, feeling like the lowest of the low.

Balthazar presses a kiss to his forehead, used to his lover's eccentricities. He gets to his feet, squeezing his shoulder.

"I'll see you tomorrow, sleep tight." He smiles, gently, as he does everything. "You deserve it, after tonight, what a party, eh?" Castiel smiles back as best he can.

"You were excellent." He murmurs, feeling the dependable pride he has in Balthazar's work flare to life. "They were blown away, I'm sure."

"Naturally." Balthazar grins. "Night sweetheart."

"Goodnight."

Castiel hears Balthazar move through the darkened living room, letting himself out through the front door with a snick of the latch.

He rolls himself over, embracing the soft rise of the quilt and tries to sleep. Guilt simmers like bile in his throat.

When he wakes up he calls Dean. He hates himself for it, but it must be done, to ignore him, and the events of the previous evening would be rude, callous and unnecessarily cruel. Castiel does not want to be any of those things, especially not to Dean.

They make a lunch appointment (he does not use the word ' date' even within the safe confines of has mind.) And noon sees him seated across from Dean himself in the most private corner of a tiny restaurant a couple of blocks from his office.

"So you're gay?"

Castiel lowers his wine glass and looks across the table at Dean.

"So's Liberace." He raises an eyebrow. Dean dips his head in awkwardness and Castiel relents. "Yes, I'm gay, as evidenced by...well, a lot of things."

They're sitting in a restaurant, a nice one Castiel often brings clients or colleagues to. It has table linens, a wine list and waiters, which makes it nicer than anywhere Dean's eaten in a long time. The lunch is going, if not well, then at least better than the tense conversation of the previous evening. They've covered the weather, the nice menu, their journeys to the restaurant and their respective hangovers. Castiel is wearing another black suit and open collared white shirt, like a tasteful reject from a regency film, an undertaker or dour gentleman. Dean, having returned his rented suit, is wearing dark jeans and a green button down.

And he's just jumped them into a new field of conversation entirely.

"I just thought...maybe it was a teen thing." He says without judgement. "Hell, maybe I thought it was just me." He adds quietly, and Castiel feels a hitch in his chest, subtle but there, like an old wound. A phantom limb.

"It was, for a very long time." He says quietly, too intense for what is supposed to be a casual lunch. A meeting of old friends. "But I knew it, uh...changed things for me." He sips his wine thoughtfully and Dean is struck with the sophistication with which he operates, this man who used to be Cas. "I couldn't pretend not to want those things, for myself." His eyes find Dean and he knows what's coming. "I know it was not the same for you."

"I think it was just you."

"I think it was tequila." Castiel comments wryly. But there's a flicker of something in his expression.

"I wasn't that drunk." Dean feels it come out with more pointedness than he had intended.

"No you weren't...shall we order?" Castiel opens his menu briskly and scans the options as if he isn't invested in the conversation at all.

Dean casts an eye at the menu, the prices are high, closely resembling his cable bill. He is caught in indecision for a second, finding the cheapest thing – green salad and calculating the damage. He looks up to find Castiel watching him a small frown on his face.

"My treat, Dean." He says, like Dean should have realised already. He hadn't thought that his creeping discomfort was written so deeply on his face.

"It's fine." He sets the menu down and takes a drink from his water glass. "I got it."

"Dean." Castiel's voice is smooth and soft. "I chose the restaurant, it was my idea to go for lunch and I called you – so it's my tab to pick up."

It smarts, the knowledge that Castiel is rich, and by extension - successful, happy and in love. Dean has nothing but his crappy job and his empty apartment.

"I'm not here to talk about our salaries and I certainly don't want to make you uncomfortable." Castiel sighs. "I've...I've brought business associates here before and I thought...I always think, when I see the menu, that you'd like it." He shakes his head, a small smile spreading sadly on his face. "I didn't think I'd actually get the chance."

Dean looks at him, really looks and Castiel catches his eye, frowning slightly.

"What?"

"Nothing, just...look at you all grown up."

"I couldn't stay seventeen forever." He sounds nonchalant, but there's a sadness there too, like if someone had asked him if he wanted to stay that way for the rest of his life, waiting – he would have chosen Dean.

"Nobody does, doesn't mean I'm grown up." Dean's lopsided smile paints itself across his face. Castiel blinks, then smiles back, like he wasn't expecting the joke, the light heartedness that came after his own declaration. "So...what's good?"

"There's beef loin in toasted garlic naan with pancetta and mozzarella." Castiel reels off the menu item with a straight face, then smiles slightly. "Essentially a burger in all but name, I've had it before, it's quite good."

"Awesome." Dean takes another sip of water. "How about you?"

"I was thinking the same, I haven't had red meat in ages." He frowns contemplatively at the menu, then realises that perhaps that statement needs clarification. "Perils of working with the wealthy and volatile – carbohydrates and any meat that isn't grilled dry are strictly forbidden." He's dryer and more acerbic than he ever was, and Dean smirks a him at the thought of Cas internally mocking picky authors.

"Can't have that."

"No we can't" Castiel says with easily faked seriousness.

The waiter comes to take their order and Castiel also requests a bottle of wine, at first he thought of sticking to his solitary glass, but he's enjoying himself.

"So, you never got married?" Is how he chooses to jumpstart things once the waiter has departed. Dean isn't remotely wrong footed, to his credit.

"Engaged once, didn't take." Castiel tilts his head, an invitation to continue. He doesn't remember Dean being this closed off, but then they did practically breathe the same air back then. "Turns out I like my space and I didn't want the whole 'picket fence a dog and a Studebaker full of screaming kids' deal."

"That's almost how I pictured it...though I don't think anyone could have made you drive a Studebaker, not after the impala."

"You remember the car?"

"Dean, you gave me a monthly lecture on why it was the greatest car ever built." Castiel raises an eyebrow pointedly. "I only know two types of car by sight, a VW beetle and the '67 impala."

"And I was right, she's still going strong."

"You still have the impala?" Castiel's smile is genuine and disbelieving.

"If she stops running I may just put her on blocks and live in there." Dean says, loyally. "best damn thing I've ever owned."

"Better than your albums?"

"Don't make me choose." Dean's eyes widen. "That would be cruel."

"Remember when Sam built a fort for his...what were they called...?"

"Troll dolls." Dean supplies.

"Yes!" Castiel grins "he used the records for the roof...I thought you were going to kill him." He murmurs fondly.

"Would have too." Dean glowers "If you hadn't talked me out of it."

"I don't remember that." Castiel tilts his head.

"You said you'd stop helping me with math and if I ever stayed at yours again..."

"You'd be sleeping on the floor." Castiel's expression clears in remembrance. "Because murderers don't deserve beds."

"Which I argued they did, because hey, prison cells have them. And it was Zeppelin II, no way would they have convicted me."

Castiel laughs and the food arrives, they unfurl their napkins and take up their silverware in comfortable silence. The food is rather good, and it's the only thing on the menu that came in a portion big enough to satisfy a human being, as opposed to a church mouse. Castiel knew this from experience.

Dean casts frequent looks over Castiel, under cover of reaching for his glass of wine or looking out across the restaurant in general. In turn Castiel casts his eyes up under his lashes, watching Dean taste his food experimentally, uncomfortable with his focus, which refuses to leave the other mans mouth. He had believed himself to be an adult, but circumstances seem to have placed him back in his role of frustrated onlooker. A function of himself he had hoped to have withered and fallen away during his years away from home, and then with Balthazar.

He pours himself his third glass of wine, and watches.


	4. Chapter 4

"This was fun."

They're in the restaurants parking lot, the early evening dark surprisingly deep. Lunch slipped easily into dessert, into coffee and finally just talking until they were pointedly presented with the bill. Dean has his hands in his pockets against the slight misty chill of the cement lot, Castiel following, standing in front of him, beside the impala.

"Yes it was." Castiel inhales deeply. "I expect you'll be...heading home, soon?"

"I have a lot of vacation time saved." He says pointedly.

"Would you like to...do this again?" Castiel's gaze is measuring but cool.

"Yeah" Dean forces himself to meet the other mans eye.

"Good."

"I have to ask...is this the city talking...or do you genuinely not like me?"

Castiel blinks.

"I didn't mean to..."

"No, just...like half an hour ago you were laughing about Ruby's eighth grade dye job...now you're acting like...a politician or something."

Castiel stares at him for long enough for Dean to curse himself inwardly for saying something so stupid. But he knows he had a point – Castiel's far too slick for his own good.

Castiel sighs, shoulder's drooping. "I'm sorry."

Which Dean was not expecting.

"You know I feel like I'm doing this all wrong." He rakes a hand through his carefully dishevelled hair, face quirking self consciously, and suddenly he's Cas again. "I've become used to dealing with a certain type of person..."

"Grown-ups?"

"Dicks." Castiel's smile is inclusive and Dean feels a flare of recognition. "I don't want to treat this as I would any other meeting...but you're...you...and I was nervous. I know I have a habit of handling social events badly, when they really matter."

"Can't imagine you nervous, not now anyway."

"We kissed yesterday, Dean...before that I hadn't seen you in over a decade." He raises his eyebrows. "I never thought I'd see you again...and then you turned up looking..." He huffs a laugh. "Incredible. And telling me pretty much what I've wanted to hear my entire adult life. So yes...I'm nervous, and I have no idea what I'm doing..." He blinks. "and I think I'm drunk."

Dean backs him against the side of the impala, slowly. Castiel looks up at him, skin surreally white under the street light, eyes impossibly big and blue.

"If it helps...I don't have a plan here."

"Not as comforting as you'd think." Castiel muses, looking up at him. "Someone should know what they want."

"Right now..." Dean reaches behind Castiel to open the door of the impala. "Get in Cas."

Castiel takes in the command, the fact that it is the back door and not the front. He slides into the relatively dark interior of the old car, smelling almost exactly as it used to, moving until he's on the far side. Dean gets in after him, closing the door. If either of them was worried about where this was going, all doubts are silenced when Castiel pulls Dean towards him, shifting to lie on the seat, mostly underneath him. The first meeting of their mouths is intensely fraught, both of them twitching with nervous anticipation. Castiel's fingers cradle the back of Dean's skull, pulling him down, his other hand slipping up the back of his shirt.

It's slow and agonisingly charged with doubt, because they are both certain that at any moment one or both of them will lose their nerve. Dean settles over him with a knee pressing up between his thighs, hands covering chest and shoulders in insistent touches, then dropping lower to palm his hip bones, fingers curling under him and pressing into the resistant flesh of his ass. Castiel rakes his hands over Dean's back, sliding one down the back of his slacks and squeezing. They're rocking together, at first minutely, then growing more urgent, Castiel bucking up as Dean pushes down on him, rubbing together and panting into each other's ears.

Castiel is the first to reach for Dean's zipper, dragging it down and slipping a hand inside, past the fabric of his boxers, finding him as hard as he expected, startlingly hot. Dean groans, fumbling with the front of Castiel's pants. And then they've got a hand on each other, pumping slowly, painfully slowly, hips twitching impatiently and brief pulses of pre-come slicking the way. Castiel's still got a handful of Dean's ass, the other man balanced on one hand leaning next to Castiel's head. Castiel squeezes, thumb sliding down the cleft of his ass, a tease and a promise that makes Dean twitch in his palm.

There's silence, the pull of flesh on flesh and their sharp breaths the only sounds. Far away someone shouts, on the other side of the parking lot a couple argue, the woman's raised voice carrying shrilly to them. Dean's mouth moves slackly against Castiel's swallowing the tiny, urgent whimpers he makes, burying his own gasps in his open, willing mouth.

All he can think is that this is Castiel, Cas his friend, his only friend aside from Sam, but he's also Castiel, a grown man with class and money and more experience at this, whatever it is _this_ is. A slightly inebriated fumbling session of jerking off and making out in the back of an ancient car, Dean knows this is not what Castiel is used to, with his lover and his apartment...everything they're doing is below his standard, and it makes him ache.

"Dean" he looks down into Castiel's eyes, open wide in the false twilight of the car interior. "Stop thinking" he pants, fingers squeezing meaningfully. Dean jerks him faster and Castiel's eyes snap closed with a mewl, his own hand picking up the pace. They aren't so much thrusting now as writhing, twitching without conscious effort, chests heavy and heat flaring over their skin. Dean can't help but wonder at the changes in pressure and texture, the rasp of his palm on Castiel is lost the growing slick of him, the liquid coming steadily now. So wet.

"God yes" Castiel pants, and Dean realises he spoke his last thought aloud. Now that the silence has been broken neither of them can seem to stop.

"I did this, yesterday" Dean rumbles, Castiel's eyes jewel bright and attentive. "Didn't even make it back to the hotel." Castiel whimpers, gathering his fingers tighter around Dean at the thought of him, pulled over somewhere, jerking himself at the side of the road in the car they're currently inside. "Did you Cas? Were you touching yourself for me?"

"Yes" They're both so close now, backing off and then pushing on again, drawing out what they both know will end in moments. Castiel presses them both together, a strangled sigh escaping him at the contact. Dean slides against him, silk and wet and perfect, thrusts turning rougher, needier. Castiel only pushes back at him uneven gasps edged with whimpers. His other hand scratches Dean's chests, thumbs a nipple, reaches to grip the side of his neck. Dean kisses him, rough, finding the determined sweep of Castiel's tongue. He comes, and pulses against Castiel, whose hand returns to his ass, squeezing and pressing down, bucking up into the increased friction as he teeters on the edge and comes with a cry.

They lie, lax and hot afterwards. The sudden stillness is uncomfortable, their breathing returning to normal in the relative quiet. Still pressed together over the evidence of their release, Castiel's head tips back, resting on the seat.

"I wish we'd done this sooner." He says, quietly.

"Me too, I'm getting too old for car sex." Dean knows this isn't what Castiel meant, but he can't take seriousness right now. He doesn't want to think about what this means.

"Do you think if we'd gotten this far, that night, we'd have ended up differently?" Castiel nudges Dean off him and sits up, frowning down at his feet. "That maybe I'd have gotten over you?" He adds, sadly.

"I'm just irresistible." Dean curls an arm around Castiel's waist, holding him softly despite his attempt at humour. "I don't think I'll ever be over you." He inhales the back of Castiel's neck, a mixture of cologne and fresh sweat. "I don't like men Cas...it's just you." He's stating fact but it seems to mean so much more than that now it's out in the open.

"I wish we'd done this sooner" Castiel repeats turning and placing a light kiss on Dean's jaw. "But we can do it again."


	5. Chapter 5

_**I have been neglecting updates, sorry about that. **_

_The first time Castiel fantasised about Dean he was fourteen. It was one of those disappointing summer days when the sky's the colour of old water and the air is heavy with hot, drizzling, rain. They're at the open air pool, deserted as you would expect, and Castiel's watching Dean swim, his own feet dangling into the tepid water. Dean stands up, shallow waterline only just reaching his waist, shorts distorted into a swirl of blue and red by the waves._

_Castiel thinks how much he'd like to take them off. _

Castiel feels bad about what he's doing to Balthazar, indirectly, because, he doesn't intend to hurt him, but he is all the same.

Balthazar is far from monogamous. He sleeps with artists, art students, waiters, random men (and sometimes women) who he meets in bars. But in the end its Castiel he returns to, and if Castiel ever told him he wanted them to be exclusive, Balthazar would probably fall into monogamy without a thought.

Therein lies the problem.

For Balthazar, his other conquests are fun, a form of interaction like flirting or ogling someone from a distance. It's not personal, it's just how he is.

Castiel wants Dean with every fibre of his body, every cell of his mind. There's nothing casual about it.

He's had a lot of time to think about how things with Dean could have gone, how he wishes they'd been, how they would never be but he'd likes to think about it anyway. What Dean would feel like, what he'd say, how they'd touch. How they'd be from minute to minute, day to day, year to year. Growing up, growing old and still together.

Fifteen years is a long time to hold on to a fantasy.

He's jerked off to the thought of Dean innumerable times, when he was a teenager, at college, up until the very week Dean came back into his life. He's not short of fuel for these fantasies, he spent a lot of time with Dean back when their friendship was present rather than past. Dean at the local pool, Dean sleeping on the floor next to him, Dean in gym class...Dean doing anything, not just those moments Castiel found him irresistible, but in his everyday life, how he moved, how he spoke.

He's had it bad for a really long time.

And now he's had a taste of the real thing, how the hell is he supposed to let go?

It had been two days since he'd seen Dean, since they'd ended up rubbing against each other, not even half naked, in the back of his car. He hadn't really stopped thinking about him since. He'd called him twice, received three calls from Dean, plus another invitation to dinner, and jerked off probably more than was healthy, on reflection.

He's also been avoiding Balthazar.

Because it's easy to say that he's wanted Dean for over ten years, easy to say it will never happen, and to settle into a routine with an intelligent, attractive artist who doesn't mind his crippling commitment issues. It's one thing to hold on to fantasies.

It's another thing to be presented with everything you've ever wanted, and knowing that you only have a few short weeks to milk it for every memory you can before it ends. Before Dean goes back to his life, out of reach.

Is it bad that he wants this? That just once in his life he wants to get something for himself?

_Dean doesn't really remember the first time he fantasised about Castiel._

_It happened gradually, the odd flash of thought while he was with his girlfriend, teetering on the edge of orgasm with a memory of blue eyes to trip him over the edge. The odd dream he laughed off to himself as the effect of spending too much time with his friend. _

_His first honest to God fantasy, the first one he created for himself? Goes something like this – _

_It's prom night and he tells Castiel he looks fine, and to stop being such a girl._

_They go to prom, the punch is spiked .He drives them to the after party. _

_Castiel ends up in a closet with him, they kiss, they touch, he tells him he loves him._

_The door doesn't open. No one runs off, and they just stay the same, forever. _

_It's not sexy or even very imaginative – but it's a fantasy because it's something he wants, but can never have. _

Dean's getting used to living out of a suitcase. He's getting used to his motel room, to the coin operated laundry machines, the TV with its shitty cable and his lumpy mattress. He's adjusting to the transient lifestyle.

Castiel is worth it.

He worries what will happen when he inevitably runs out of vacation time, when he has to face up to the fact that Castiel would not be happy in Dean's tiny apartment, and that Dean can't stay in the city forever.

When Castiel realises what he's doing and dumps his ass for Balthazar.

Fifteen years and somehow he's wound up being Castiel's dirty little secret.


	6. Chapter 6

_I have been shamelessly neglecting this story in favour of others, so here is an update. I'm kind of going for a kind of summer romance feel, hence the slow progression of the story and the...well ok, the porn is self indulgent – sue me._

They agree to have dinner at a place of Dean's choosing, which naturally stresses him the hell out for most of the day. He's offered to pay, so it can't be phenomenally expensive, but it also has to be nice enough for Castiel, and therein lies the problem.

In the end he goes for a nice place that serves mostly diner food, but nicer than his usual places, with a kind of farmhouse look that Dean wasn't aware existed in the city. He meets Castiel there and they're seated and on their first beer by the time Castiel brings up their last date.

"What happened before...the other night?" Castiel's cheeks tint themselves with blood and Dean remember the days when Castiel used to blush like a split tomato. "I don't usually...I'm not usually so quick to become intimate."

"You don't screw around a lot in parking lots." Dean says it mostly to watch the blush he knows is hiding spread like wildfire over Castiel's face. "Fine by me, it's not to everyone's tastes." Castiel looks at him and Dean can feel a lazy throb of arousal at the sight of the other mans eyes, blue swamped in pupil.

"It was nice."

"Just nice?" Dean is seldom in the position to do this to someone, watch their coyness dissolve and listen to their breathing grow harsher between their words. He enjoys this, watching Castiel come apart at the seams.

"More than nice...you were..." a slip of pink traces across Castiel's lips, a trail of moisture lingering on the parched skin. "perhaps more intense than I have experienced for a while."

"Silver tongue isn't working today huh?" Dean smirks. "If you liked what I did to you...which, judging from the state of my clothes, you did...just say."

"I liked what you did to me." Castiel says, with a suddenness which makes Dean feel like this is some kind of control game he's playing, that Castiel will say whatever he wants him to, do whatever he wants him to. "You felt, incredible...on me, to me." Castiel clearly isn't familiar with the concept of talking dirty and Dean is perversely pleased about that, that he gets to break him to something another man didn't get to first.

"You want me to touch you again?" Dean keeps his voice low, their eyes linked over the empty table. "I could take you out to the car right now and open you up, would you like that?" Castiel swallows thickly and nods slightly, as if unaware of the gesture. "Fill you up, where anyone could see." Castiel's hips twitch in his seat and Dean can barely breathe because this isn't just teasing anymore, he's dead serious and, if Castiel lets him, he'll be outside on the backseat of the car and balls deep as quickly as he possibly can. He's never had a man before, has no idea what he's doing, but it's so much fun to wind him up.

"Now. Cas." Castiel stands up and walks towards the door, aware that Dean is following him, his heart jamming up against his breast bone.

The lot behind the diner is walled, the impala the only vehicle in it and Dean thanks God for small mercies, pressing Castiel's back beneath his palm and opening the door to the back of the car. Castiel goes as if he's absent a will of his own, stretching out on the back seat and breathing heavily, hips canting upwards with each inhalation. He looks up at Dean with an expression so expectant and cautious that it's almost afraid. Dean shuffles into the car after him, closing the door and gathering Castiel up until they're chest to chest.

"Hey." He murmurs, nuzzling the shell of his ear. "I've got you." Castiel sucks in a harsh breath and rocks against the hardness pressing at the front of Dean's pants. "Eager for it aren't you?" Castiel crushes their lips together, fingers knotting in Dean's hair and dragging him into the kiss. He presses Dean down into the seat, straddling him and dropping one hand down to the fastenings of his jeans. He raises himself enough to work his own pants down enough to get bare skin to skin contact. Dean's cock fits into the swell of his buttocks and the other man rocks up with a grunt.

"Jesus Cas."

Castiel slips his pants and underwear off entirely, moving from one knee to the other and pressing Dean's hands insistently into the seat cushion of the impala before reaching behind himself and doing something with his fingers that makes him squirm with a combination of discomfort and appreciation.

"Have you..." he sucks in a breath at the first breach. "Have you done this before?"

Dean shakes his head and feels about sixteen again, watching his first girlfriend undress.

"Good." Castiel whimpers and shifts backwards onto his own fingers. "Good...just, just do what I tell you...uh..." his eyes slip closed. "it'll be...soo good." Dean attacks his mouth and Castiel kisses him back earnestly, fingers slipping free and wrapping around Dean's erection before he can register their absence. He sinks down, down in one continuous slide which makes him moan softly as he feels himself being stretched, filled up, full of weight and burning with the ache of the breach.

Dean's hands fist Castiel's hips.

"Holy..." His head hits the seat cushion and he squeezes his eyes closed, it's too much, being inside something so hot, inside of Castiel, bare skin on skin and the pressing tightness around him takes him to the edge and holds him there by the throat. "Cas..."

Castiel kisses his throat, humming softly in his throat and shrugging off his suit jacket, he shifts up, then down and Dean just about hangs onto his control. Castiel's panting heavily into the skin at the base of his neck, hands clutching his shoulders as he rises and falls again, almost letting Dean slide out of him before taking him back in. He presses his forehead to Dean's, building a steady rhythm.

"Relax." He breaths, feeling Dean still tense and on edge beneath him.

"Can't...too close." Dean's hands rub burning circles into Castiel's hips. Castiel grinds down again. "Fuck I'm gonna..."Castiel feels him shudder, wet heat coating his insides. Dean sags back against the seat. He breathes heavily for a few seconds."That was embarrassing."

Castiel carefully moves off of him, resting on the seat. Dean chances a look at him and the other man is really trying to hide a smile, and failing miserably.

"I'm glad you find this funny." Dean tugs his jeans closed, wincing at the tacky feeling of denim on his skin. Castiel moves too quickly for Dean to react, on top of him again in a fraction of a second, erection rubbing against the softer portion of Dean's belly, he kisses him gently, easing away the brutal force of their earlier clashes with the light press of his lips and tongue.

"You" Castiel wraps a hand around himself and strokes slowly. "are sweet."

Dean opens his mouth to argue, because he is not, and has never been sweet. But The head of Castiel's cock bumps his stomach again, and the warm weight in his lap is comforting, so close and familiar, though it has no right to be. He rest his hands on Castiel's waist, mouthing his throat as the smaller man works himself to orgasm, shaking as his breath hitches. He comes and rests solidly against Dean's chest, eyes closed and features smoothed out.

"Cas?" Dean whispers against his ear.

"Mmm?"

"You want to sleep it off at my motel?" Castiel moves back and nods, hair sticking up and blue eyes wide, he'd look like a teenager, if he wasn't spotted with his own come, still half naked and sore from Dean's movements inside of him.

"Can we get takeout?"

"Whatever you want." Dean kisses his forehead and they break apart, reassembling their clothes and moving to the front of the car. The whole space still smells like sex and Dean feels pleasantly warm, insulated from the evening chill outside. Castiel fiddles with the controls for the radio and it says something for Dean's good will that he didn't cut his hands off for changing the station. There's a prickle of embarrassment at the back of his mind that prompts him into saying what he'd rather avoid.

"I'm never going to live that down, am I?"

"What?" Castiel cocks his head lazily.

"You know what." Dean turns into the flow of traffic and keeps his eyes open for a Chinese takeout place.

"You came, that's the point of sex." Dean wonders where the shyness has gone, but reflects that given what they're both covered in there isn't really room for modesty. Castiel frowns like he's trying to analyse a flavour in the air. "Do you have any cigarettes?"

"Thought you quit."

"I want one." Castiel stretches. "anyway...its intense, especially the first time." He pops open the glove compartment and looks through the mess of CD's, finding only an empty pack of Embassy and a cheap lighter. "We've got a while, to do it again." His eyes meet Dean's and all the heavy expectation of the diner is back.

When Dean picks up some cartons of food, he makes a stop at the corner market and buys their smallest pack of cigarettes, a slim white box that fits easily into his jeans pocket. He hands them to Castiel once they've eaten and stripped each other, and are both loose and warm from fitting together for the second time.

Castiel accepts the pack with a quirk of a smile, lighting up and inhaling greedily.

"I haven't smoked since I was twenty." He licks his lips and offers the cigarette to Dean, remembering all the ones he'd stolen right from Dean's mouth, sitting on the ground behind the gymnasium or by the window of Dean's bedroom.

"Welcome back to the dark side." Dean swipes the sheet from Castiel's back, leaving him naked and bare on the bed. "Turn over."


	7. Chapter 7

_Transition into real world woe ahoy! I've been writing this for over a week and it was really hard to get it together, so I apologise for its brevity. _

Dean's vacation time is up.

He wakes up on Sunday morning knowing that he has to be back home by Monday, nine o'clock sharp.

Castiel is sprawled across the other side of the motel bed, still a little wrecked from their fourth night together. The TV has tuned itself out, showing only static, and there are takeout cartons on the floor in front of it. The nightstand is covered in a shrapnel of condom wrappers and delivery change, a half empty bottle of lube lying on the sheets which at some point slipped off the bed and ended up on the floor.

He can't believe it's over.

He reaches out towards the other man, spread eagled over the exposed mattress, face down on the one remaining pillow. His fingers sweep over the curve of his back, down the rise of his ass. He grumbles into the pillow, wriggling as he wakes and rolls onto his side, blue eyes unfocused. Together they're a sight to appal anyone, naked, bruised and bitten to soreness, semen drying on them both, stomachs and thighs marked with it from each time they woke up and found each other again the in the dark. There's a trace of it on Castiel's jaw, showing through the shadow of stubble that's appeared, scratchy and uneven, overnight.

"G'morning." He croaks, and his voice has dropped so deep it's barely intelligible.

"Morning Cas." Dean drags his aching limbs until he's sitting on the edge of the bed. He rolls his neck, feeling the crick in it all the way down his spine. He's getting too old for marathon sex, way too old to sleep on motel beds. "Listen...I gotta go."

Castiel is bolt upright in second, hair a shock of mussed black, eyes widened out of sleep. There's a massive bruise on the side of his neck, a matching one on his hip, and Dean remembers sucking both into existence, only hours ago.

"Why?" Castiel clears his throat, "Where do you have to...oh." His voice dies. "When do you have to leave."

"Soon as I can...cutting it close as it is." He fumbles for the clock, check out in half an hour, just enough time for a shower to get the mess off of him, then he has to start driving. When he goes to the bathroom he leaves Castiel frowning at the wall absently.

After a few seconds the hot water starts hammering down over him and Dean eases the tension in his neck under it. He knew it would hurt to leave Castiel, he knew it and for the last week he's been telling himself that it didn't matter. Burying himself in him over and over, trying to keep hold of something that wasn't even his.

Wet hands sweep down his back as Castiel steps into the shower behind him.

"Hey." The smaller man says quietly. Dean doesn't turn, keeping his face under the hot spray. Castiel lays kisses against his shoulders, on top of his own nail marks and the rivulets of water. "I don't want you to go." Hands cup his buttocks, stroke his thighs and stomach, mapping over his chest from behind.

Dean pushes Castiel up against the dirty shower wall, burying his face in his shoulder so he doesn't have to look him in the eye. Castiel whimpers and pulls his hair, wetted to long dark strands, bringing his face level and kissing him.

"Don't go." He murmurs, the space between their mouths narrow and damp with breath and steam.

"I have to get back to work...they'll fire me Cas." Hands slide down his back and he can feel Castiel's legs on either side of his, braced on the floor of the tub.

"I don't want to wait fifteen years before I do this again." Castiel nuzzles the damp space of Dean's collar bone, tasting salt and clean water. "I've already missed too much."

"Yeah, and my two room apartment in the asshole end of nowhere is really a sight not to miss." Dean closes his eyes and misses Castiel's aggrieved expression.

"Dean...you saw the house I grew up in, just because I live in a nice place now doesn't mean I'm a snob...and if you're there, it's not going to matter."

"Little early for cheesy lines Cas." Dean tries to move away from the wall, back under the spray, but Castiel is deceptively strong.

"Not kidding." He growls. "Fifteen_ years_, Dean."

"I know...this isn't just 'prom night – the extended remix' ok? I meant everything I said but...Cas you have a life here, you have a job and a home and...an artist...remember?"

Blue eyes fix on his and they look exactly the same as they always had – vaguely troubled and slightly confused by the situation they found themselves in.

"Homes can be sold...I don't particularly relish my work, prickly academics and pretentious literary divas being what they are...and Balthazar..."

"Yeah, Balthazar?" Dean crowds him against the wall and Castiel presses their foreheads together.

"Balthazar will get over me...he has about fifteen models and unlimited groupies to help him do so. He's been very good to me but...I think he'd understand." He pulls back a little. "If this is too fast for you...?"

"I've lived alone my whole life, I'm kinda ready for someone else now." It's the most eloquent way he can phrase it, the desire to wake up with someone and factor them into his life, his home (their home). It's Castiel, he's known him, or at least, he'd known him, for most of his life. Even with their separation he had never stopped thinking about him, not really. Why would he now throw away the chance to be with him?

"Ok...we'll figure it out." Castiel's eyes brighten. "just...give me a week to get everything settled at home, and then...I'll see you."

Castiel lets him guide them both under the shower, and Dean feels the tension, the weight, he's been carrying around since the first time they'd kissed, dissipate.

He has Castiel. Everything else, he can work with.


	8. Chapter 8

_**So, I neglected the hell out of this, and having vowed to never leave a story unfinished, I am bound to finish it. So this is the concluding chapter, and i just wanted to look at doubt as a theme between them, and wrap it up neatly and hopefully satisfyingly for those still interested. **_

_Balthazar leans against the doorway of the bedroom, watching him pack. A dark suited figure with mussed blond hair and a thin bracelet of shells and twine, bought especially to deter accusations that he's become privileged and out of touch with the common world. _

"_You know this is doomed." Balthazar drawls, watching Castiel fold shirts and pants and place them in a suitcase. _

"_No I don't." Castiel murmurs._

"_Come on, Cassy... Balthazar raises a hand to appraise the rings there, making an effort to look bored and aloof. Castiel is not fooled, whatever the papers may write about him, Balthazar is at heart a loyal man. The fact that at his prick he's a chancer ,and at his mouth he's a lush doesn't change that. It's one of the many qualities that has kept Castiel with him over the years, along with his skilful fingers and appreciation for the quality things in life._

_In the end though, Castiel can live without filet mignon and Egyptian cotton. He can live without an athletic and experienced lover, well versed in the arts of seduction, sensuality and light bondage. If he can have Dean's heart, his body and his loyalty – he will happily give up his life here – live in a tiny apartment and eat only Mac'n'cheese like his mother used to make when the bills were due and she had no cash to spare. _

"_I realise it's a new concept for you." Castiel sighs. "But he's worth losing out on all this." He clicks the suitcase shut. "He loves me." He fingers the clasps. "He waited for me."_

_He's told Balthazar their story, and the blond man looks at him with something close to pity, concern warring with it in his eyes._

"_He left you, love." Balthazar says quietly. _

_Castiel looks at him, betrayal flashing briefly across his features, he shakes his head, but still looks a little less certain than he had moments before. "He was seventeen, how was he supposed to react?"_

"_Not like an arse." Balthazar quips. _

_Castiel frowns._

"_Cassy, when I was seventeen I'd already screwed the choir and the chaplain at St. Michael's." He says pointedly. "And I was busy winning my fifth art prize."_

"_Your point?" Castiel asks, sourly._

"_My point is, we are who we are – and we all find our level." Balthazar says sagely. "Your Dean is a runner, and he's always going to want to run from people's disapproval...which is going to leave you in the firing line, alone."_

_Castiel considers this. _

"_He came here for me." He points out. "I think...I think he'd fight for me...if he had to."_

_Balthazar looks at him sadly._

"_Just because he came crawling...doesn't mean he won't flee at the first sign of trouble." He goes to pour himself a scotch. "And running is a lot faster than crawling."_

_Castiel looks down at his case, wondering why this is suddenly so hard._

Dean looks in despair at the tiny apartment and the mess that he's somehow managed to ignore for the last...well, decade.

The walls were once white, put leaning on them with grubby hands, falling against them drunk and still wearing his overalls, and general airborne filth have discoloured them. The ceilings are yellowed from cigarette smoke from a previous tenant and his own ex-habit. The couch is spilling its stuffing, the carpet is denuded in places, spotted with small round burns from flecks of hot ash. It smells like old beer and smoke, and he doesn't have a vase or a single unchipped glass in the whole place.

He sits on the broken couch and puts his head in his hands.

He lives in a cess pit.

Castiel lives...lived, in an awesome city apartment with a famous artist and had all kinds of fancy _clean _stuff.

What's he trading that for? Dean and his apartment and his freaking moat of issues?

He unpeels a garbage bag from its roll.

Time to clean house.

It takes house longer than he thought it would. He has drawers full of crap he never uses, old shirts and batteries and keys and change – shit he doesn't even know where it came from, but it looks like IKEA fixings mixed with bottle caps from microbrews he doesn't drink and sprinkled with thumb tacks.

What the hell has he been doing all these years?

How has he acquired so many tubes of superglue?

He takes a break only when the phone starts to ring, but by the time he's fought his way to it it's gone to voice mail. The apartment is at least clear now, and clean. But it's resultantly empty and kind of...cold.

He needs to buy new things, clearly.

Before he drives all the way to town to buy some freaking coasters and new sheets and whatever the hell else he can find to make his 'house a home' Dean checks his messages.

_Dean, hello. I've packed and my work is being diverted to me via my laptop .I can be at the airport tomorrow, if I send you my flight time, could you pick me up?_

There's a moment of stilted silence.

_I already miss you. _

_This is Castiel, by the way. _

Dean smiles to himself. Fancy suit or no. Castiel was still, somewhere deep down, the awkward seventeen year old he'd kissed in a closet.

When Dean looks in the mirror, he sees exactly what there is to see. Exactly what he is. The sum of his years, small town mechanic, loner, single man with a draw full of bottle caps and a single family picture on his dresser. But Castiel, with Castiel, he can be what he feels underneath – a teenager with a bright future and a great friend. The good older brother, popular and funny.

Selfish and unhealthy as it might be, Dean wants that. He also wants to serve as the connection Castiel needs to who he used to be.

Because to everyone else, Castiel might be Balthazar's lover, a business mogul, a rich and well bred man with taste and class and an impressive bank balance. But Dean remembers how Castiel's family were once so poor they'd subsisted on boxed mac and cheese with frozen peas for three months. How their electric got cut off and their Mom was committed to the county mental hospital. Twice.

He remembers that Castiel was the fastest runner in their whole grade.

That he whimpered in his sleep.

That he read old classical novels and secretly found teen movies hilarious.

Castiel Novak was Cas.

Regardless of whether Dean had matching towels or a scorch marked couch, they would still be Cas and Dean.

Things had been that way for longer than Dean cared to remember.

_Waiting at the airport for his flight to board, Castiel could not stop thinking about Balthazar's words. Dean had run from him before – from the possibility of disapproval and exclusion. What was to stop that happening again?_

_He had wagered his future unknowingly on Dean before - his schooling, his career had all come out of Dean's betrayal. _

_Was he really going to risk everything he'd built from the ruin of that mistake...on the man, the boy, who had cast him to the wolves?_

_As Castiel sits, bent over his paper cup of mediocre coffee, he feels cold and contemplates his future, and the ruin it could be reduced to do by this one mistake. He was trading on the feeling of Dean's skin against his, the rough words of adoration that Dean had moaned against his throat. _

_Nebulous as smoke. _

_His phone chirrups. _

Hey, Cas, what colour sheets go with a green bedroom?

_He stares at those ten words disbelievingly. _

_He texts back – Maybe green, also?_

_The reply comes within moments._

Cool. There's like...nine kinds of green, so I'll get a few. You can pick the one's you like best.

_As an afterthought Dean adds in another text. _

Any thoughts on towels?

_Castiel has a small, but powerful epiphany. _

_He could text Dean every minute until his flight boards, and Dean would answer him, would consider his words and take the time to tap out a reply._

_Dean is standing in a store, and has bothered to ask him about what kind of sheets he should buy for their bed._

_Their. Bed._

_He texts – White. Classic, simple, easy to clean._

How dirty are you?

_Castiel laughs to himself and fires of a text that leaves Dean in little doubt exactly how dirty he can be. _

_It's such a small thing, a brief moment._

_But such small moments can divert entire years of life._

_They can build a home from a ruin._


End file.
